Heroes never existed to begin with
by eatingpaper
Summary: "You try to talk about him, but they don't want to talk about a nobody like him. You wonder why the blades of his scissors are red. An unnatural incarnadine with variations and laced with ribbons of flaking rust."/AU, RusAme, mentions of self-harm


Disclaimer - I don't own Hetalia.

;o; i've never , _ever _written RusAme before. I don't even really like them, actually. but there's been a few suicides here lately, and, well , some times i wish i had a hero , too.  
i don't even know whether i deserve to say such things, but,

Please, if you are harming yourself, _please _stop. I don't know what sort of life you might have , but I do know that you are precious and beautiful. Don't, please _don't_ do horrible things to yourself. Somewhere out there , there is someone who loves you and cares for you, you are an amazing person with the ability to make someone's stomach do flip-flops, someone cherishes your smile, heck _, I _cherish your smile. Even though I may not know you, see you, hear you, I love _you_. _You_ read the stuff I write. Love yourself, love others , because they're not worth your hatred; high blood pressure isn't good for health. Befriend people, even more so lonely people, because you might just save a life.

* * *

**heroes never existed to begin with **

* * *

He sits by himself at his desk; a thin stack of paper watching with blank faces as he deftly folds their companions into smaller rectangles and shuffles them under his desk. The actions seem so robotic, meaningless, but his eyes are alight with childish excitement. You watch him from your side of the classroom, from over the edge of the cowboy hat the other kids snicker behind their hands at.

You think to yourself that you've never seen such beautiful violet eyes or such adorable an expression as his.

* * *

You know being the new kid in school is not easy, and you try your best to fit in. But your usual tactics – being loud, enthusiastic and basically as friendly and charismatic as you already are – are not working. You love the limelight, you revel in having people turn their heads to watch you go by, to have every body speak your name with reverence.

That is why when your first bring him up and the other kids tell you that he is bad news and not to be involved in him, that he must be crazy because no one sits there and fold paper, you don't protest. They make fun of him and you go along and whisper about his immaturity and lack of any friends.

When the bell rings, you find him sitting under the sunflowers in the school garden. You don't go over because the others are watching you; you bite on your tongue to stop yourself from saying 'hello'.

* * *

The days pass and you find yourself constantly watching him, from between the heads of your classmates huddle around you and jabbering into your ears like chickens after corn. You try to talk about him, but they don't want to talk about a nobody like him. You're quite sure he can hear them, but you don't tell them to stop.

You learn to tune them out, and in the silence, you can think about him. You wonder what the folded rectangles of paper are for, and why the blades of his scissors are red. An unnatural incarnadine with variations and laced with ribbons of flaking rust.

One day you find him looking back.

* * *

Some days when you walk past the florist, you see him standing outside, picking out sunflowers from the pot by the sidewalk. Some days when you're alone you stop and greet him and he replies with thrusting sunflower petals into your hands. Some days you walk with him to his house and you talk about aimless things, and he tells you about his mother and his sisters, how he misses his old home.

You ask him what he does to the sunflowers he had stripped their petals off of and he replies with a cryptic answer of how the sun can never shine bright enough to melt the ice and snow of forsaken glaciers. You arch an eyebrow and laugh it off.

And you notice the criss-cross mesh of scars peeking out from under the sleeves of his long coat (that he always wears)

* * *

A friendship begins to form between the two of you and the other kids notice and whisper into your ear to stop before it's too late. You ignore them and they start to turn on him instead. Eggs on his head, chocolate cake on his chair and his desk by the school incinerator.

Every time you step up and defend him, and every time he asks you 'why'.

After the most recent episode involving his textbooks and the paper shredder, he tells you he planted the sunflowers the two of you are sitting under when he first came into the school.

Three years is a long time, you say.

Yes. Three years is a long time.

A silence passes.

A long time ago when I was a lot younger I used to dream of being a hero, the kind you see in comics and on the telly who go 'round saving people in distress and all that fancy jazz.

He smiles and gives you more petals.

You ask to see what is under the scarf that curls perpetually around his neck, like a sleeping dragon, and when he does unwind it slowly, you realize the inside layers are all stained maroon and the welts on his pale neck are an angry red; frustrated that the blade(s) had not cut deep enough.

You didn't know boys could cry until you felt something wet drip down your cheeks.

* * *

When you reach school you find your classroom surrounded by a crowd of students, talking animatedly to each other in hushed tones and a look of guilty shock on their faces. You feel your stomach twist and you elbow people aside to stumble into the classroom and just stand there and gape.

Snowflakes are every where.

Fragile, elaborate snowflakes cut from paper, each unique and hanging from the rafters on nylon thread, taped to the walls and windows and piles of them scattered underfoot.

Each snowflake is rimmed with red that bleeds beautiful, chilling designs across the virgin paper. You feel sick to the stomach and when the teachers storm the room and cut their lifelines, rip them from their strongholds and trample on their open scars, you leave in a hurry for his house.

But the house is dark and empty and the curtains are draw over the windows, except for the kitchen where, when you cup your eyes and strain through the murky glass, a collection of bare, droopy sunflowers are on display in a vase.

You kick the kitchen door and bang your fists on the screen until your body aches, but your heart hurts even more, and as you crouch down by the unrelenting unforgiving metal,

you wonder where your childish talk of being a hero went.


End file.
